


Meeting

by naye



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Mages and Templars, Pre-Canon, Young Anders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5531051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naye/pseuds/naye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on the run from the Circle, Anders has a brief encounter with a young templar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skuldchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuldchan/gifts).



Anders was considering a new career: author of guidebooks for fugitive mages. He’d dedicate an entire chapter to haystacks, with a bold face warning paragraph titled something witty like ‘The haystack _is_ the needle’. Because the blighted stuff would prick you _everywhere_ if you had to burrow in without any regard for your tender skin. Not to mention, hay dust – oh Maker.

He had been trying to use First Enchanter Irving’s breathing exercises to focus on not sneezing, but he was beginning to realize that not only were the memories of what Irving had said suspiciously hazy, but it also seemed that any breathing at all would set off a sneeze no matter what he did now.

If he held his breath could he summon the tiniest shield and maybe refill his lungs with air instead of dust?

Within seconds he had his answer – no, he could not. Mostly because a sneeze had already snuck up on him, wringing his face inside out and making a noise loud enough to echo in the barn. _Shit_.

Next plan… maybe pretend to be a cat?

“Hello?”

Anders swallowed a hysterical giggle and curled his hands to fists around his staff (a branch he had found and scratched a few runes on). Yes, sure, meowing in response to that call would absolutely make the templar hunting him go away and nobody would suspect anything at all.

“Is anyone in here?” came the voice again – young and male, so definitely not the leathery old farmer woman he’d seen taking her workers out into the fields earlier. Maybe one of the younger ones had come back early?

Anders hadn’t even finished the thought before clanking steps dashed his hopes yet again. Farmers – not big on clanking. Templars, however? They clanked. Sometimes they clinked. And – oh, of course, who could forget the silent but deadly whisper of a sword leaving its scabbard?

Anders heart was beating rapidly, setting the tempo for his tumbling, useless thoughts. Alright. Stun. he could do this – that was one lesson he had paid a lot of attention to. Last time he’d run Irving hadn’t yet showed the technique to the younger apprentices, but this time he’d had months to practice. Months!

“Look,” the voice came again – closer now, closer to Anders’ pile of hay, “I know someone is in here. I don’t want anyone to get hurt – please just come out and I’ll, uh…” the voice wavered a bit. Good – he wasn’t cornered by a veteran, at least.

“I’ll put my sword away and – and we can talk?” There was another pregnant pause. Then – no. No!

Another sneeze.

Anders couldn’t stop it – but he could follow up. The same moment the templar went “Aha!” Anders burst out of the haystack like a ragged darkspawn scarecrow, pieces of straw and dirt exploding around him as he targeted a blast of energy at the man who had exclaimed – and almost got run through that very second. With a high, startled yelp he parried the sword unexpectedly aimed right at him with his improvised branch-staff and let his magic scatter.

There was a nearly identical yelp from is pursuer, who lost his grip on the sword and doused Anders in the most unpleasant dampening burst he had ever felt. Ever.

They stared, wild-eyed, at each other over the hay drifts, the templar temporarily bereft of his sword, Anders temporarily bereft of his magic.

The sword, yes – Anders glanced along its trajectory out of the corner of his eye – had vanished. (The needle in the haystack is a sword! a ridiculous part of his mind crowed.) His magic was – ugh. Under a horrible, sticky film of some anti-mage spell.

“Well, this is awkward,” the templar said. He sounded like his voice had only recently broken. Anders, whose voice steadied last year, felt immensely superior.

“See, I was supposed to, uh…” the templar glanced at Anders sturdy staff.

“Go on,” Anders smirked, already in a fighting crouch. The young templar didn’t follow suit, just stood there, wary.

“Catch you?”

“I’d guessed,” Anders said, wishing he could summon enough mana to at least disorient his opponent for a second.

“I don’t suppose you would like to put your very big stick down without braining me?” the templar boy asked hopefully.

Anders thought about it. He didn’t want to kill anyone – but he also _really_ didn’t want to be hauled back to the Circle.

“Put that down,” the boy went on, “and come along peacefully?”

“I’d really rather not, no,” Anders retorted.

The templar sighed. “Well, I can’t threaten you with my shield. Can I?” It sounded like such a sincere question that Anders caught himself grinning.

“Shields aren’t great for intimidation,” he offered.

“Well then,” came the reply, and to Anders’ immense astonishment the templar smiled at him. Was this a trap? But the dark eyes under the mop of shaggy blond hair were guileless. “As I don’t relish having my skull split open and my brain used to redecorate the insides of this barn – how about I give you until nightfall?”

“What?” Anders said, not following.

“Listen,” the young man said, all serious for the next few words. “I didn’t choose to be here either.” Then he smiled. “I’ll have a nap. Report your evil mage ways knocked me out cold. Maybe even find my sword before anyone realizes that I lost it. In a _barn_.”

“You’d… let me go?”

The templar quirked an eyebrow at Anders. “I think we already established that you’re not intimidated by my shield, and that I can’t force you to stay here without risking grievous bodily harm in the process.” He shrugged, seeming at once too young and scrawny for his clanky templar armor.

“You hold that staff like you mean it. I’m just here because they’ll yell at me if I come back to camp before sundown, even if the rations really are way too stingy for a growing templar.” Then he grinned again.

“Unless you’ve decided I’m so authoritative and templar-y that you’ll give yourself up on the spot? Honestly, I wouldn’t mind. I bet there’d even be extra rations in it for me.”

Anders relaxed a fraction waiting to see what the other would do – no reaction. Maybe – maybe he was serious.

“Oh, and don’t go west, ” the templar added, in the tone of a scholar giving distracted directions to an obvious tome. “They’ve brought a Mabari along on that patrol.”

A wave of mana flooded Anders, magic come gloriously unbound and unhindered from the templar’s hasty dispel, but he still hesitated for a second before whispering, “You won’t have to lie.”

The blast knocked the templar off his sleep and he crumpled (clanked) into unconsciousness. Anders knew time was of the essence, and yet he held back – before running off, he looked around the barn until he could dig the sword out of a haydrift and return it to the templar’s side. He closed the gauntleted fist around the hilt, and cast one last confused glance at the young man’s slack face before taking of at a run.

He headed east.

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to leave the templar's identity out of the tags, but - yes, he is supposed to be a young Alistair. 
> 
> As always, thanks to Skuldchan for inspiration, feedback, and beta reading!


End file.
